Holding tension, learning attention.
‘Swap, pull tight, and hold, okay?’,
My fingers twitched in response, getting closer to the thread; the thread responded, digging into them. (The entire world is in conversation, once you start to look.) As I pulled and pulled, feeling the thread stretching with me, the tension in my wrist extended to the tension in the string.
Tension requires company, it only did come to life when conjoined with the pull of B’s hand on the other end.
Some things only exist in relationships. (It’ll be years later that I’ll edit the ‘some’ to ‘every’.) They have no existence of their own. The balance of scales, the distance between two people, silence between the clap, rests between the notes, the tension in the string.
This tension is tangible and tactile. The test awaits. The string basks in its straightness as A comes and gives it a flick. It flutters, trembling and hazy for a second before snapping back into position; we delight looking at it, tingling, the tension perfect, our hands bleeding on the two ends, still tugging.
I look at this manifestation of tension in front of me, extending from me, our bodies coaxial, and think of the word it gave birth to, ‘attention’.
‘Attention’ takes more than just the etymology from tension. It, in a very active way, is another act of stretching.
Attention, too, doesn’t come cheap. It takes effort and strength and sometimes may ask for a dash of pain, demands to be peppered with lavender bruises. It is, as rightly said, the highest of the gifts. The skin may feel like it wants to give up and how lovely it would be to just let go, skin dreaming of the string sliding off the valley. The string pulling, it could just pull you along. So easy.
But then the sweet seduction of the tension pulls. If you just stick to it, transform the pain into an offering, and why not? Anoint it with the effort and the heart it requires, and oh God how it feeds the space between the two, the string gorgeously taut. Flinchingly unflinching. Not robust but resilient. Adapting, the system in flux, the act reveling in full glory. Constantly feeding and being fed. A harmony.
Attention’s very existence demands a company. It cannot exist in isolation. Its symbiosis.
We add our apple fingers, crisp and crimson, tender from the pulling to the cauldron. Attention is alchemy, an alchemy of tenderness, and as all alchemists know, steeped deep in their bones, there is no magic without fire.
The pain is worth it, the elixir cooks.
‘Attention taken to its highest degree is the same thing as prayer. It pre-suposses faith and prayer. ’
Simone Weil
Like in a tensile structure, the junctions are tricky. They have to be paid special attention to, seen that they are well braced and supported, and detailed with the utmost care and thought. One builds them healthy and happy, prepares them for the stress, and protects them from the strain. And look, how light it becomes! Almost flying, so much lighter than you have ever known. You watch, fascinated, mouth agape in awe, amazed at how has it not taken flight already.
They don’t weigh down as compressive structures do, heavy heavy, putting all the weight down on the supports, pushing them down in the ground, feeling like at any given point it’ll cave, the columns will collapse and it will all come crashing down.
In response to compression, the tension pulls, it‘s the ‘up’. Of gazes and hearts and spirits and hope. Even if it gives in, what are we in danger of? Flying away with it? Ricocheting off with our blood painting the sky?
Tell me a better gamble?
Even earth when stretched apart at the seams, gives out tender lava, red and glaring but soft, sinuous, seductive in its viscosity. A gentle beauty to behold, born out of the act of pulling.
Tension doesn’t include just the pulling. It requires pulling and holding. Staying with it. Passion fuels the hand for the first pull and it’s the love, soaked in patience, that does the staying. It’s in the staying you learn, while the tension marks the skin, learn the magnificent strength humans hold and the sheer ingenuity of them. You learn how to bend your fingers a certain way to hold the string, and find one can lean on a corner to give it the extra pull to keep the tension intact. You learn and marvel at the capacity of the human heart.
Dazzled, you wink at the co-conspirator, the universe.
The guitar sings the best when the strings are taut. The note is the sweetest with the right tension, nobody asks the neck if its caving. We make music, the sublimest, your own fingers offering themselves, holding their part of the deal, as the instrument holds the tension for you. You softly release the tension in the night before setting it to sleep, caressing the body, ‘look at the beauty we made tonight, love.’
Like most beautiful things, attention doesn’t come easy. It’s work. Effort, time, and sweat go into it. It’s the pure primal act of making. You are the maker. You build it, and like most beautiful things, watch in wonder how it builds you along.
The most crucial ingredient in alchemy, only next to fire itself, is the alchemist’s own hand.
The most coveted elixir in alchemy, only next to elixir itself, is the alchemist’s own heart.
If you liked this, do read Juliana Castro’s beauty of work ‘Tenderness shares a root with attention’ which was in more ways than one the seedling for this thought.
(https://www.are.na/blog/tenderness-shares-a-root-with-attention)
Actually read that whether you liked this or not. It’s gorgeous.
Also, check out Rest Energy by Marina Abramović and ULAY.
